The Quantum Wanderer

“Good morning, my lord.” Shandon says, looking at me, coming from behind Ruby. Both are making very suggestive faces.

I smile.

“We are on a mission, girls. Let’s get this done, then we can stay a couple of days having fun.”

Cecilia pushes herself against the wall, sitting on the bed.

“Did you get what you wanted, my villain?”

“The answer is weird. I am now able to do some magic, but many of my tricks don’t work here. The air does not have the same composition as in Andrea, so the air magic using gases does not work. I managed to get a couple of things working, though. My railgun is working.

“I feel like I am close to a break through, though. I feel like I am reaching something, like a fruit that is just outside your reach, but if you stretch you manage to brush it with your fingers.”

Cecilia shrugs.

“Are you rested, my lord?” Opal asks.

“Yes. In spite of the position, I did some of my time expansion thing, so I am rested right now. It feels like I have been in this position for a long time, though.”

I stand up. The high level body does not get affected because of the inconvenient position. I start putting the armor back on.

“Shall we get ready and go down for breakfast?”

“Yes.” All the girls answer together, each with a different emotion. We all get our armors on, and get out of the room.

Cecilia goes to Akiko’s room, and knocks. Akiko answers the door shortly, already with her adventurer outfit. We all go down the stairs together, and the elder couple and Gabi are already having their breakfast. Just like we do in Andrea, they do have some meat in the breakfast.

Our plates are already on the table, as well as the big plate for us to use to place the big slab of steak. We exchange pleasantries. After sitting down, I do just that, and we go through the same process.

After I finish eating, I enjoy how flabbergasted Gabi gets when she notices the amount of food my girls eat. I clear my throat.

“Gabi, how far is the Country of Wings?”

“Around ten days, in my pace.”

“Which pace is that?”

Hameln lets out a good hearted laugh.

“She is a fast desert walker. That’s why she is one of our best scouts.”

I take a look at her. She reminds me of a squirrel. Her tail is fluffy, and static. From what I had seen yesterday, she kind of hops more than actually walk, as if she weights nothing. Her tail tends to stay static, moving when she hops.

We finish eating, I relax a little bit.

“I want to say thank you for your hospitality, elder Hameln and lady Lupergia.”

“Don’t worry about it. We have great expectations…” He says, while dismissing it with his hand.

“You do realize that I am not intent on doing anything too dangerous, right? Our goal here is to get the woman and baby, and then get out.”

He laughs, as if he is in to something that I am not aware.

“Sure, sure. Don’t worry. I understand it completely. Besides, there is the gift of the worm that you provided yesterday. That is going to be a couple of lazy days for our hunters.”

I shrug.

We stand up and walk out the house. We undo the path we took from the city gates to this house. Gabi is pretty popular among the people, apparently. Specially the soldiers. After the first steps outside the gate, I finally turn to her.

“Well, lady Gabi, which way to the tengu country?”

She points to her right.

“We are going to have to go around the city, obviously.”

“Why?”

She looks at me like I asked something pretty stupid.

“Everyone knows that city gates are always pointing away from her. Duh!”

I giggle, but I sense some killing intent from my girls. Specially from Opal. She takes a step forward. I smile at her, shaking my head.

“Lets go, then. Aquamarine, can you please carry lady Akiko?”

“Sure, my lord.”

Aquamarine approaches Akiko.

“Excuse me.”

She picks Akiko up in a princess carry. Not much of an effort.

We start walking, and keep accelerating. In just a couple of moments, Gabi starts breathing hard, making faces.

I get to her side.

“Do you mind being carried as well?”

She looks me up and down, while doing her weird running/hopping, and trying to pretend that she is not out of breath. Quite a cute picture. She starts to say something, but then gives up, breaths, then tries again.

“Ok.”

Opal passes by her, and in a single scoop puts Gabi on her shoulder, carrying her like a potato bag. When Gabi realizes, Opal is running by me, and Gabi is staring at me from Opal’s but.

Gabi tries to rearrange herself in the position, and manages to adjust a little. I can hear her whispering an exchange with Opal.

“I think this is going to make me sick.”

“If you spoil my back, I am going to rip this fluffy tail and use it to clean myself.”

Gabi covered her mouth with her two hands.

Now that the slowest of the group is Cecilia, we can pick up the pace a lot more. And so we do.

We go straight through the desert. Every once in a while, I ask Gabi if we are going in the right direction. She looks at the shadow being created by Opal and her, and confirms.

Muninn and Huginn keep flying above us.

Now that we have a goal, we go faster than we did before. We ignore monsters on the way, they are mostly too slow to give us chase.

After some time running, Cecilia asks us to have a brief stop. The sun is right on top of us, it is very hot. Cecilia bends down, catching her breath.

Opal puts Gabi down. The girl’s tail’s hair is all pointing up. She stands on the sand, trying to stretch. She has some marks in her leather armor. Among some old marks, I notice a couple of new ones. Brok’s armors are comfortable for the one inside the armor. For someone on the outside, being carried on the shoulders, not so much.

“I think you froze my butt. I can’t feel a thing.” Gabi complains to Opal. Opal ignores her completely.

Aquamarine puts Akiko down. She also stretches a bit. Even though she was way more comfortable than Gabi, she still remained in the same position for hours on end. While stretching, she turns to Gabi.

“How did we come? Do you know how long we still have?”

Gabi doesn’t answer, she is still moving a little bit. When she stops, she pulls out a round device, it looks like a compass. She throws it up about a foot in the air, making it spin. Then picks it with her hand and stares at the device. After some seconds, she clears her throat.

“I don’t really have a hard measure of distance here. Given that the city compass is taking so long to update, I would say that we are in the second third of the trip. That’s really amazing. You guys can run! I have never seen spirited like that.”

Cecilia laughs a little, while recovering her breath.

“No one has seen anything like Marcelo.”

The dragonesses nod, with a smile on their faces. I clear my throat.

“How strong are the spirited, generally?”

“Really weak?” Gabi answers. “They generally get sent here while visiting this sacred mountain and temple... That’s what they say, at least.”

“How often does this happen?”

“Hummm…  Once every few years.”

I just let the subject die. I take a look at Cecilia. I hand her some water.

“Are we rested, Cecs?”

She nods. She takes in some water. I pass the wineskin with water around. I wait till everyone has their fill of water. Gabi is staring at us. Her face shows a lot of emotions. I offer the wineskin to her. She looks like a hungry dog that wants food but is afraid of the collar.

“You can have the water, Gabi. I have other wineskins in my bag.”

“Well, since you don’t care, I shouldn’t be the one worrying, right?”

She drinks water from the pouch. She is staring at us while drinking a lot of water. She hands the pouch back, it has more water than I would expect. I have a sip and put it away.

“Everyone ready?”

Opal is about to put Gabi again on her shoulders. I hold Opal’s shoulder, she turns to me. I show her the marks in Gabi’s leather armor and whisper in her ear.

“I understand that you were angry, but  your armor already damaged hers. If it keeps going, it will hurt her. You made your point. And thank you, I know it was because of me.” I give her a kiss on the neck, since I am already close.

Opal hits the ground with her foot once and takes a deeper breath before answering me.

“Of course, my lord.”

Opal picks Gabi up princess style. Aquamarine does the same with Akiko. Gabi points the direction we have to go, and we get back to running.

Sometimes we pass close to some sand moving suspiciously here and there, but we were going too fast to fall on any traps.

It is boring. Dune up, dune down. Dune up, dune down. Hours and hours.

Then the desert starts to give. Sand becomes normal land gradually. The sun is about to set.

“We arrived?” Gabi asks, more herself than us. “We arrived!”

We stop. Cecilia is again out of breath. I pick another wineskin of water and hold it near her. After a couple of minutes recovering, she stands up and drinks some of it.  Opal puts Gabi down.

Gabi is looking at herself. Her fur is all messed up by the wind she was subject to during our run. She takes a look at Akiko, and notices that Akiko is suspiciously composed.

“Wait! She is a normal spirited, right? Why isn’t she messed up?”

Akiko shrugs. Gabi looks at Aquamarine.

“Oh, I placed a wind shield in front of us. The wind would be a little uncomfortable otherwise.”

Ruby laughed.

“Remember the first sister Cecilia flew?”

“That certainly built character!” Muninn says, laughing, while landing on my shoulder.

We all laugh. Cecilia is still recovering from the run. She drinks some water. After making a face of ‘har har, how funny’ to us, she turns to me.

“Should we camp here in the border? We can continue tomorrow.” She turns to Gabi. “Is it safe here?”

“Merchant caravans generally stop here for rest. The sand is too shallow for big desert monsters, and too much for normal monsters from the other side. That being said, there is always a sleeping rotation.”

“Well, that works.”

I take out stuff from my bag of holding. Two tents, a table, some plates. Meanwhile, Cecilia is smelling herself.

“I know I grew spoiled, but I would love a bath.”

I shrug.

“I placed a lot of water in my bag of holding, but it is not really practical right now. Hey, that’s what an adventurer’s life is about.”

Cecilia sighs. She smells her armpit again and gives me a yellow smile.

We put the plates on the table, and proceed to have some supper. I take out some wine ale from my bag of holding, and we have some kraken steak.

“What is this?” Gabi asks, while chewing.

“It is a monster from our land. I didn’t pick any food when we left the city.”

“At this point, I wonder if this is what she eats…”

We laughed a little. I clear my throat.

“Gabi, which way should we go now?”

“I thought you would have noticed. The rising sun. Always the rising sun. I heard that it literally rises from her castle.”

“What about the cities of the tengu? Which way are they?”

“Oh, don’t worry. Once you enter their land, I mean, really enter it, they will come. Give or take another 2000 feet.”

I look towards the place. Some distance in, the sand ends, and a forest begins. We have our dinner. Gabi tells us some stories about how she helped on hunting some monsters and her abilities in sensing underground monsters in the desert.

She tells us about a wolfkin she has been dating. In my head I wonder if a relationship between predator and prey kins would not be weird. But other than the way she walks and moves, she seems normal.

This makes me wonder how instinctual behavior changes across species here. It is quite obvious that humans have instincts as well – I have never seen a person that has their plate removed or destroyed, while they are eating, to be happy about it. The first instinct is to kill whoever or whatever is doing that.

I would expect some innate racial fears and friendship to reflect on some behavior. This is all very interesting.

After we finish eating, we go to our tents. The girls go to bed, I get into my meditation stance. I want to expand my possibilities, I have to study. I enhance my brain. I feel my sensation of time expanding. At first, I rest.

Then I wake up. I don’t move. I continue from where I had stopped at sun rise. I try to control my mana with the environment’s. The frequency, the timbre, the color. It feels weird that I have to think in words.

I breath. I push the words away. I push the languages away. I focus on something simpler. Thoughts without language. Information that cannot be spoken. Forms and shapes that cannot be described dance in my head. Singularities. Consciousness. Intent. Time.

I manage to regain some of my control. I manage to interact with the environment.

I don’t remember when I dozed off, but I am awaken by Cecilia.

“My villain? My villain? Are you ok?”

I lift my head, I smile at the circle of faces staring at me. Each more beautiful than the other.

“I am fine, girls. Really fine.” I stand up. I stretch my legs a little. “I have regained some of my magic.” I turn to Muninn and Huginn. “Can you check my mind on how it works?”

They both show their four eyes. They shine before they close. I close mine and I let them in. They go through the experiences, experiments and sensations I went through during the meditations.

A short time later, we all open our eyes. Both Muninn and Huginn shake their heads.

“That was a FUCKING RUSH!” Muninn exclains.

I giggle a little. The girls are staring at us. I sigh.

“Let’s get ready.”

We put on our armor back again, and prepare for what is to come. We go outside our tent. Akiko and Gabi are already prepared sitting down around the table. They were talking lively, but they stop when they see us coming out of the tent.

“Honored guests! Ladies!”

“Lord Marcelo! And… Wives… Good morning.”

“I am telling you father! Just look at the discrimination!” Muninn says, faking having his feelings hurt.

Gabi starts stuttering. She is visibly shaken. She has seen Muninn’s real shape before, not so long ago.

I tilt my head. I know him better.

“Really?” I ask him.

He falls in a laughter, and gets some beating from Huginn. Then he apologizes. Everything is a joke. I turn to Gabi.

“It’s alright. He jokes like that sometimes. He knows you mean well.”

“Ahn… Err… Ok, Thank you.”

I pull out the food for the breakfast. We eat and chat a little bit. Once we are done, I put everything away in my bag of holding. The tents, the table, the chairs.

Gabi looks at the place the tents were. She sighs.

“Time to go back, I guess. Good luck in your travels, lord Marcelo. I really do wish you the best.”

I sense some sadness in her voice. She lets out a sigh.

“Bye!”

“Bye!” I say.

She turns around and starts walking away towards the desert. Then starts hoping in her weird style of running.

We turn our backs to the desert, and walk towards the rising sun. We walk for a very short while, when the black specks appear on the sky. They come close, and land right in front of us. They are pointing lances with cross shaped tips towards us.

“HALT! WHO ARE YOU?”

I take a step forward.

“I am Marcelo. This is my group. My wives, my adopted… Muninn and Huginn. My friend, Akiko.”

The group of five tengu is looking at us. The one in the center, with shiny equipment, is staring at me. The one to his right is staring at Muninn on my shoulder. I take a look at Muninn and Muninn is smiling. I look the other way, and Huginn is also smiling. The weird smile they do, the beaks twisting.

The one to his right starts tapping the one in the front on the shoulder.

“Sir! Sir!”

“SHUT THE FUCK UP!” He turns to us. “A PIECE OF SHIT SPIRITED DARES TO STEP IN OUR COUNTRY?”

Munnin and Huginn both jump from my shoulder to the ground, assuming their real shapes on the way. Their four eyes shining.

Huginn is shaking her head from side to side, doing a ‘tsk, tsk’ sound, while Muninn is just laughing. They both stop at the same time, and their eyes shine.

“Enough! Kneel!”

The five tengu fall on their knees. Muninn turns to me.

“Do you want them to kill themselves, father? They kind of deserve it.”

I shake my head.

“No, it would bring more trouble than it’s worth…” I look at the scene. “How come you can control them?”

“They are partly… birds… It is hard to explain, it is more instinct than reason… But a little of connection to birds, a little mental power… You know…”

“Sure, sure.”

“So… What do you want to do with them?”

I look at the tengu. They are kneeling, their heads down. They are sweating. The one in front manages to lift his face up and stare at us. That is a very pissed off tengu, if I can say so. He starts muttering something. Only because of our enhanced audition can we hear it.

“Goddess of the Mountain, show us your power. Let ants not tramp your pride. Let your troops know your blessing.”

There is a quick golden shine to him. I can feel he gets a boost, I can feel the denser mana and some other energy enhancing him. I prepare myself for a fight, but he doesn’t manage to get up from the position. Muninn whispers to me.

“He got reinforced, but his two sides got strengthened, the human and the bird. He is a single being that is both. Unless the blessing weakens one of the sides, he will not be able to break it.”

Huginn takes a step forward.

“I still think we should just rip their heads off.” Her eyes shine again, and the other four shake.

I turn to her and Muninn.

“Can you guys control all of them if we go straight to their fortress?”

“It can be a little tiresome, but it can be done, papa. Not too different from what we are used to do in Andrea. But it helps if we can just issue the same order for all of them. Ordering them individually is more tiring.” Huginn answers.

“What about something like ‘be nice to us’?” I ask.

“That works. Some of them could resist a little, though. It is a whole id against super-ego thing in their minds, but it would generally work.”

“Let’s go ahead with that, then.”

I can feel a subtle pulse, starting from Huginn, and expanding in a circle. Muninn tilts his head and looks at her. Seeing a four eyed crow, big as a room, raising a non-existent brow is funny. He has a smile on his beak.

I ignore his antics. I am more worried with moving along. I turn to the boss of the squadron.

“You can stand up. I am sorry for asking these questions, but how many tengu are there? How many soldiers?”

He stands up. He has a lot less aggression towards us. I feel no murder intent now. It is more of an acceptance. He answers.

“We are around ten thousand. Two thousand of us serve in the goddess’s army, under the kitsune.”

“Army? Have you ever gone to war? Perhaps with another god?”

“No. We have been used in… Punitive missions in the past.”

“I see. What are the forces protecting her castle?”

“Her will.”

“What do you mean?”

“She is everything here. She knows everything, She can everything. Everything is her. Nothing that doesn’t fancy her reaches her castle.”

“But… Doesn’t she have… I don’t know, doormen? Who carries out her orders? Who controls the accesses?”

“That would be kitsune for more mundane tasks, and the Ryu to enforce her control.”

The image of a Ryu comes to mind, a gift from having learned the language from Muninn. The best way to picture it is a snake with little claws and a dragon’s face. They can be big as well.

“What can you tell me about her castle, and the land around it?”

“Not much. Most of us have not been there, and we don’t really ask questions. The only one that has been there is our king.”

After a moment of silence, where I ponder the good and bad of visiting the king, I turn back to him.

“Can you take us to your city?”

He stares at us. It is looks like he is trying to take a look at our backs.

“Can you fly?”

I look at the girls. I turn to Muninn and Huginn.

“Can you pass them the knowledge, so that they can adapt to the mana here?”

“Yes, papa, but it would take some time.” Huginn answers.

I think about our time availability. I don’t think I would be fooling anyone with the girls staying in their human form. No one of interest, anyway. If the goddess can see us, she is going to notice their energy signature.

I call the girls to a huddle up.

“Girls, I kind of can fly right now, I recovered my magic abilities. But that required a lot of time. It looked like it was a couple of nights, but at the same time it wasn’t. So the options are, we wait spend the night here while Muninn and Huginn pass you the knowledge, or you go into your dragon shape, and in this case, carry Cecilia and Akiko there.”

There is a little silence. Akiko clears her throat.

“If I may –“

She gets interrupted by Shandon.

“We could assume an intermediate shape. We could go into dragonkin as well.”

“How does that look?” I ask.

Shandon takes out her breast plate, and starts taking her shirt off. I hold her hand. She smiles.

“Oh, yes, I forgot. My lord is the only humanoid male allowed to look at my chest. Sister?” She looks at Aquamarine.

Ruby sighs. She rips the fabric in Shandon’s back, two slits.

“There.”

From the slits, a pair of wings grow. Up to three times her height on each side. My brows go up.

“Can you carry another person?”

“As long at it is not for battle, we can.”

“Great. I can fly. Aquamarine, can you carry Akiko? Ruby? Can you carry Cecs?”

The answer from Aquamarine is a little more enthusiastic than Ruby’s. I turn to the tengu. The one in the front is crying. Not sobbing, tears are just coming down.

“Are you alright?”

He stares at Muninn and Huginn, the tears rolling, but a stoic face.

“I love you, my lords, but you are going to be the end of us.”

He turns around, and we depart for the City of Still Air.